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Phoenix Park Sunset
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Took this is the Phoenix Park….sunsets are much more difficult than I imagined and so much of this was in deep shadow that I just cropped it all out in the end…any comments or suggestions would be welcome.
Hey paperdoll,
Good thinking to use your surroundings to strengthen the blank upper part of the sky.
You might have tried a slightly lower viewpoint in order to get more of the bottom of the small tree. It does appear to “sprout” out of the darkness below. The two main trunks are very strong and make an excellent frame for the sunset.
I would tend to boost the saturation just a tad. I’m not calibrated here so I might be wrong on this. We can see what other people think.
Andy
Thanks Andy, if you have time I would love to see your take on this…
I found it quite frustrating trying to get the camera to “see” what I wanted it to see….if you get me?? :oops: Lets just say it just deepened my respect for all the landscape photographers out there :)I would actually love if someone had a link or something with a guide to taking sunset shots.
I have similar problems, totally down to own lack of knowledge.
I always seem to get the sun either way to bright or get the sun way to dark and I loose the
point of the picture in both scenarios.I do like you shot though maybe is there was a little less in the top of the shot.
Even with the trees it seems to be a little like dead space. IMHO thoughI don’t want to hijack the thread so I will give some comments regarding paperdolls sunset sky.
With digital sunsets, one of the biggest problems is clipping the red channel. For example, the brightest parts of paperdolls sunset are almost certainly clipped in red and possibly in green but not in blue. This single channel clipping is often not a huge problem unless you really start to crank the post process and often in RAW it is possible to do a bit of highlight recovery anyway. So I think with sunsets it is important to try and get as good an exposure in camera as possible rather than relying on post process and I think that paperdoll has got her sky just right.
The most challenging sunsets are those with the sun in frame. I’m having a real hard time with those. I could shoot directly into the sun with velvia and prime lenses no problem. With digital and zoom lenses it’s very hard.
Andy
Hijack all you want! :D Any tips are welcome.
And it’s comforting to know that an expert like yourself faces challenges too! I’ll keep trying…. :DFor me, ND Grad filters are a BIG feature in most sunset shots I take – helps balance out the contrast of land vs sky. great for horizon shots, no use at all in a shot like the one above! Personally, for a shot like this, I’d probably bracket the exposures and composite the shots afterwards.
The sky looks pretty much well exposed to me in this shot, so well done for that – it’s easy to blow the highlights!
I’d maybe be tempted to have gone with a slightly different composition, as I don’t see a distinct focal point in the shot.
Out of interest, did you do any post processing on this shot? And did you shoot RAW or Jpeg?
If the answers are No and RAW, I guarantee you’d be surprised at what this shot COULD look like with 10 minutes effort…
Tim
Hiya Tim, I shot raw, but didn’t bracket the exposures and as for photoshop, I’m a bit of a novice. I tried a technique of taking 2 exposures from the raw file – one for the sky and 1 for the foreground and merging them in photoshop, but I think there was just too much detail lost in the shadow area, so I just cropped it in the end. If you have any tips, I will go back to the raw file and see what I can do?? All part of the learning process…
:D
I’m not claiming to be a PS expert, but am confident enough in my own ability to make a pretty good job of conversions… If you fancy a challenge, email me the RAW file, I”ll process it, you process it, and both post. We can then look at what each of us did, and decide what bits of which are best?
Alternatively, tell me to get back in my box, and shut up babbling…
:D
Tim
no, seriously, any tips? Not meant in a smart arsey way!!!!
(Photoshop is a big lonely place when you don’t know what you’re at!)
and I definitely do not fancy a challege, cos I am absolutely hopeless with Photoshop…. :oops:all comments taken in the spirit they were intended, honestly…
I keep coming back to this shot Tara – there’s something very appealing about it, can’t really describe it in words other than “i like it”.
With all of that park land at you disposal though, i think you could have probably found an even better location to take full advantage of the
sunset. As Tim said, exposure it great, i love the colours, crop ratio is great. All in all very nice.I think this would be a great photo to mess about with in photoshop. You have a beautiful blend in the colours in the sky that could be played with. It’d be nice if the bottom part where the green is just visible were a little lighter, again could be done in photoshop. That’s a personal thing though. :wink:
Great shot paperdoll…as for photoshop tips.. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml .. has helped in any of my landscape shots…and they need all the help they can get :o
I’d love to see how you get on…
Philip
Ali – thanks for the nice comments..I definetely intend to go back and try again, maybe at a different location, so you’ll get to see the results. Crop ration is of course 1 to 1.618 which you passed onto me in a previous thread!
blacktopjunkie – part of my problem when I was taking this (apart from inexperience) was trying to get some detail in the foreground without blowing the sky, so as I said to Ali I will try this again, and try to take some of the advice given on board. Thanks for commenting.
Pippatee – thanks for the link/comments. Bit of Sunday reading for me and I also can do with all the help I can get.
Overall, I like this shot, although no doubt it could be improved, but I quite like the silhouette effect I accidentally achieved. Thanks to all for looking/commenting,
Tara
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